Kukla's Korner Hockey

Winnipeg Jets defenceman Dustin Byfuglien displayed a host of symptoms that led a police expert to believe he was high on drugs following his arrest in Minnesota last month.

Documents released Tuesday and obtained by the Free Press provide insight into the circumstances of the high-profile incident that led to a U.S. prosecutor endorsing four criminal charges against Byfuglien.

A police drug-recognition expert was called in to examine Byfuglien, 26, after he was spot-checked during the evening of Aug. 31 while boating on Lake Minnetonka because he didn’t have proper lights on the craft.

“Mr. Byfuglien’s speech was slurred, he was unsteady on his feet, his eyes were bloodshot and watery and he smelled of a consumed alcoholic beverage,” Deputy Ben Bierbaum of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office water patrol division wrote in an arrest report. “Mr. Byfuglien was unable to successfully perform field sobriety tests as requested.”

So they stopped him because he didn’t have running lights, smelled “a consumed alcoholic beverage,” then decided that he must have had some other intoxicant? Whatever it is that leaves mysterious brown stains on your tongue, I guess. Do you guys really think that that’s the only brown that they were looking at?